South Coast Sailboat

Replaced door hatch slides and door
panel

My original hatch cover floated off into the
Chesapeake bay on a dinghy loaded with two iced up coolers one
night while on vacation. As a result, I had to improvise a new
hatch cover. The original replacement was just a piece of plywood
cut to size that dropped into the original guides on either side
of the hatchway. This worked, but the one-piece hatch cover proved
to just be too big and clumsy. I later made a hatch cover that
is four pieces of cedar wood that join together to form the hatch
cover door. The sides are flat, but he joining edges were routed
to form lap joints. The lap joint is what keeps the water (rain)
from passing through into the cabin. To make this work I also
replaced the two wooden hatch cover door guides on either side
of the hatchway. Again, these were made out of cedar wood (2 x
4 with a rabbit joint routed into one side). I routed out a slot
for the hatch cover pieces to drop into, and then used galvanized
3/8" lag bolts installed from inside the cabin to secure
the vertical door guides in place. This works really well, so
if you ever lose your hatch cover to a dinghy that just seemed
to float off into the distance.